


Wounded

by esteoflorien



Category: Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 11:36:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1185780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esteoflorien/pseuds/esteoflorien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Margaret Danvers goes to the museum not because she is especially enamored of history, but because she loved it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wounded

Margaret Danvers goes to the museum not because she is especially enamored of history, but because  _she_ loved it.

She finds herself visiting the same rooms, and the regularity of her routine, coupled with the museum’s inertia, means that it isn’t long until she knows the exhibits as well as the docents. She knows, for example, what trophies of war line the hallways; she knows the order of the paintings in the main gallery.

And she knows, too, the various characters who pass their days in these halls: the old man who sits before the paintings of Elizabeth I, as if he were a long-ago courtier remembering the face of his lover; the young man who sits in the gardens eating his lunch every day; the endless streams of schoolchildren who run through the galleries to see the medieval armor.

She recognizes the fine ladies who seem to conduct their social hour in a different exhibition hall; they nod at her now, as if she was one of them, and she nods back. She, after all, was in the service of Rebecca de Winter, and Rebecca de Winter was a finer, grander lady than any of them.

"I know you," one of the ladies says, one afternoon. Her face is hidden behind a netted veil, but Margaret can readily see wisps of black hair curling around her neck, and she is reminded of Rebecca, as she is so very often.

"I don’t believe we’ve ever met," Margaret replies.  _How easily it comes to her, that upper-class intonation; how well she learnt to mimic._

The other woman takes her arm. “May I?” she asks, a bit belatedly, gesturing towards an empty corridor.

"As you like," Margaret replies. She realizes, belatedly, how very much like a servant she remains; one of these women says  _come_  and she follows without hesitation.

They pause just out of the sunlight passing through one of the clerestory windows. “You know me,” the woman says. “And I know you. I’ve been watching you.”

Margaret cannot contain her gasp of surprise when the woman removes her hat, for there she stands,  _Rebecca_ , utterly alive and utterly beautiful. “Do you recognize me now, Danny?”

"Oh," Margaret sighs. "Oh, my."

Rebecca bites her lip, uncharacteristically unsure. Or perhaps characteristically? It occurs to Margaret, seeing this new Rebecca, with this new habit, that perhaps she doesn’t know her any longer.

When she steps into the light, Margaret understands why.

“ _Oh_ ,” Margaret says, tracing the scar that cuts an angry slash on Rebecca’s otherwise unmarred cheek with her fingertip _. Not dead_ , Margaret realizes _, but wounded all the same from whatever it was that passed between them on the boat_. “Oh my darling, oh how lovely you are.” Her voices is strong; she means what she says, and before her, Rebecca offers a small smile.

She embraces her then, takes her in her arms and relishes the feeling of Rebecca’s head pressed into her neck, the tears dampening her skin, and the promise of a new life, of happiness come entirely by surprise.


End file.
